'<,    ".'  ''J 


DECISIVE  EPISODES  IN 
WESTERN  HISTORY 


AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  IOWA  CITY  IOWA  BEFORE  THE 

STATE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY   OF  IOWA   ON  FEBRUARY 

TWENTY-FIRST  NINETEEN  HUNDRED  FOURTEEN 


BY 

LAENAS  G.  WELD 


PUBLISHED  AT  IOWA  CITY  IOWA  IN  1914  BY 
THE  STATE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY  OF  IOWA 


IV 


'igitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
i;  in  2007  with  funding  from 
Microsoft  Corporation 


DECISIVE  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 


THE  TORCH    PRESS 

CEDAR    RAPIDS 

IOWA 


DECISIVE  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN 
HISTORY 

As  you  travel  along  some  highway,  turning 
aside  to  avoid  this  pitfall  or  that  rock  or  some 
snag  in  your  way,  always  watching  your  next 
footstep  and  taking  only  casual  note  of  the  trees, 
the  buildings,  or  even  the  fields,  groves,  and  hills 
as  you  pass  them,  it  may  suddenly  occur  to  you  to 
look  back  and  see  how  far  you  have  come  and 
what  the  way  is  like.  When  behold!  There  is 
spread  out  before  you  a  landscape  beautiful,  al- 
ways beautiful — for  mere  perspective  is  pleas- 
ing, regardless  of  its  content.  You  see  now  the 
relation  and  extent  of  the  groves  and  meadows 
and  uplands  passed,  the  quiltlike  pattern  of  the 
fields,  and  the  road  itself  along  which  you  have 
traveled.  But  the  pitfall,  the  rock,  the  snag 
which  threatened  to  trip  you,  also  the  flowers 
which  you  plucked  and  threw  aside,  the  spring  at 
which  you  refreshed  yourself — these  details 
have  disappeared,  obscured  by  larger  features  of 


897638   ^  ^- 


6  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

which  you  took  no  note  in  passing.  It  was  a  very 
ordinary  country  as  you  journeyed  through  it; 
but  now,  as  you  look  back  upon  it,  the  view  af- 
fords a  prospect  of  singular  interest  and  you  only 
wish  that  the  haze  in  which  the  landscape  has  be- 
come enveloped  would  lift  a  bit  that  you  might 
see  a  little  more  clearly. 

And  like  unto  this  is  History.  In  it  we  see  the 
perspective  of  once  current  events  and  relations, 
which  have  drifted  into  the  past,  where  all  minor 
and  merely  personal  incidents  are  obliterated; 
and  over  which  tradition,  in  its  quality  of  mercy, 
spreads  the  haze  which  softens  down  the  hard 
lines  and  blends  the  inharmonious  tints  that  ever 
mar  the  present. 

When  the  development  of  our  Middle  West 
shall,  with  the  lapse  of  time,  have  assumed  the 
proper  perspective  it  will  afford  one  of  the  most 
marvelous  and  thrilling  chapters  in  history.  We 
who  are  familiar  with  only  its  later  and  more 
complex  phases  have  seen  enacted  a  drama  bolder 
than  playwright  has  ever  dared  to  conceive.  The 
kinetoscopic  process  by  which  a  wilderness  has 
been  transformed  into  a  garden,  an  organized  so- 
ciety evolved  from  the  most  heterogeneous  ele- 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  7 

ments,  a  liberty-loving  yet  law-abiding  people 
assembled  out  of  the  fugitives  from  European 
tyranny  and  oppression  —  this  has  no  parallel  in 
the  annals  of  human  progress. 

In  the  later  phases  of  this  development  the 
railway  has  been  the  pioneer.  After  feeling  its 
way  along  the  most  fertile  valleys  and  across  the 
fairest  stretches  of  prairie  from  one  commercial 
vantage  point  to  another,  the  railroad  took  up 
the  task  of  transporting,  not  only  the  populations 
of  whole  districts,  but  also  the  very  buildings  for 
their  habitation ;  not  only  the  materials  and  im- 
plements of  agriculture,  but  also  the  products  of 
agriculture  and  the  proceeds  yielded  by  these 
products  in  the  eastern  markets;  took  up  the 
task,  in  fact,  of  earning  the  money  to  pay  its  div- 
idends, to  redeem  its  bonds,  to  improve  its  road- 
bed and  equipment  and  to  carry  its  operations 
into  new  fields  and  push  still  farther  west  the 
borders  of  up-to-date  civilization.  Indeed,  the 
study  of  the  settlement  of  the  West —  beyond  the 
Mississippi  and,  even  more  so,  beyond  the  Mis- 
souri —  is  a  study  in  transportation. 

But  this  rapid  development  has  been  the  sequel 
to  three  centuries  of  preparation.    Of  these  cen- 


8  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

turies  the  first  two  were,  roughly  speaking,  de- 
voted to  the  solution  of  the  purely  geographical 
problems  presented  by  the  great  interior  wilder- 
ness of  North  America ;  the  third,  to  social  and 
political  establishment. 

No  event  had  ever  before  so  disturbed  the 
world's  equilibrium  as  the  discovery  of  America. 
As  the  extent  and  resources  of  the  new  continent 
gradually  revealed  themselves,  the  significance 
of  the  discovery  became  more  and  more  appar- 
ent. Europeans  were  fairly  staggered  at  the 
wider  outlook  upon  the  world  afforded  by  the 
voyages  of  Columbus,  Vasco  da  Gama  and  Magel- 
lan —  at  finding  themselves  in  such  new  and  un- 
suspected relations  to  the  planet  upon  which  they 
lived.  As  the  round  globe  revealed  itself,  the 
ancient  mythical  boundaries  betwixt  the  known 
and  the  unknown,  with  all  their  vague  terrors, 
were  swept  away.  To  the  peoples  of  Europe  a 
vast  field  for  adventurous  exploitation  was  sud- 
denly thrown  open.  The  future  no  longer  lay 
before  them  upon  the  same  dead  level  as  the  past. 
It  loomed  up  before  them,  presenting  practical 
problems  of  a  new  sort,  problems  for  the  solution 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  9 

of  wMch  they  were  little  prepared,  either  by  ex- 
perience or  by  their  natural  proclivities. 

Thus,  while  enthusiasm  was  high,  progress  was 
slow.  Between  Europe  and  the  new  continent 
lay  a  thousand  leagues  of  ocean ;  the  navigation 
of  which,  though  it  had  lost  its  mythical  terrors, 
was  still  attended  by  real  dangers  of  a  very  sub- 
stantial sort.  The  perilous  passage  made,  the 
bold  adventurers  faced  a  continent  for  the  most 
part  inhospitable.  Such  welcome  as  they  were 
occasionally  accorded  by  the  aboriginal  inhab- 
itants was  easily,  and  usually,  turned  to  sullen 
suspicion.  It  was  before  the  days  of  canned  pro- 
visions and  the  many  collapsible  and  portable 
contrivances  which  to-day  make  of  such  expedi- 
tions, relatively  at  least,  mere  ^^  outings' \ 

In  the  South  the  Spaniard  looted  and  de- 
stroyed two  civilizations  in  his  lust  for  gold  and 
was  lured  through  vast  wildernesses  in  the  vain 
search  for  yet  other  Eldoradoes.  In  the  North 
the  Frenchman  scoured  still  vaster  territories  in 
his  equally  rapacious,  though  less  demoniacal, 
quest  for  furs.  In  the  middle  land,  between  the 
sub-tropic  heat  and  the  sub-arctic  cold,  the  sturdy 


10  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

Englishman,  while  despising  neither  gold  nor 
furs,  grubbed  a  safer  living  from  the  soil. 

Spain  was  soon  shorn  of  her  prestige ;  but  her 
just  and  inevitable  reward  was  long  —  too  long 
—  delayed.  The  record  of  her  atrocities  in  the 
New  World  closed  only  as  the  waters  of  Havana 
Harbor  closed  over  the  Maine,  Above  the  scenes 
enacted  at  Manila  and  at  Santiago  there  may 
well  have  hovered  the  avenging  angels  of  Monte- 
zuma and  Atahualpa.  But  the  career  of  Spain 
this  side  of  the  sea  is  of  little  concern  to  us,  ex- 
cept that,  through  meddling  with  it,  it  has  of  late 
years  bequeathed  to  us  our  full  share  of  the 
*^ white  man's  burden"  and  ^^the  big  brother's  re- 
sponsibility". 

Not  so  with  the  rival  careers  of  Prance  and 
of  England  in  America.  From  that  rivalry,  as 
it  deepened  into  struggle  and  from  struggle  into 
the  death  grip,  was  developed  American  inde- 
pendence. We  are  familiar  with  the  story.  As 
school  boys  we  learned  it  and  dwelt  upon  its  inci- 
dents with  patriotic  pride.  But  there  are  many 
features  of  the  story  as  ordinarily  told  which, 
from  our  western  point  of  view,  need  emphasiz- 
ing.   Its  perspective  is  quite  different  as  w^e  see 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  11 

it  from  the  shores  of  the  Great  Lakes  or  the 
banks  of  the  Mississippi  and  as  our  cousins  see 
it  from  the  grand  old  State  of  Massachusetts. 

At  this  juncture  I  may  be  pardoned  perhaps 
for  alluding,  at  least  briefly,  to  my  subject.  What 
we  mean  by  ^^ Decisive  Episodes"  depends  upon 
two  things.  First  it  depends  upon  our  point  of 
view,  as  I  have  already  intimated.  In  any  case 
the  degree  to  which  an  incident  may  be  regarded 
as  decisive  has  no  necessary  relation  to  its  mag- 
nitude. The  decisive  battles  in  the  world's  his- 
tory have  not  been  those  in  which  the  largest 
armies  contended  or  in  which  the  slaughter  was 
the  most  amazing.  They  are  the  battles  by  which 
the  whole  subsequent  course  of  history  has  been 
determined.  Thus,  had  Harold  beaten  off  the 
Norman  invader  at  Hastings  we  should  have  been 
a  quite  different  people  from  what  we  are  to-day, 
speaking  a  different  language,  living  under  dif- 
ferent laws,  swayed  by  different  ideals.  Indeed, 
we  should  not  have  been.  It  was  a  decisive  bat- 
tle, that  at  Hastings. 

Again  our  estimate  of  what  is  really  decisive, 
as  distinguished  from  that  which  is  merely  inci- 
dental, depends  upon  the  extent  to  which  we  ad- 


12  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

mit  fatalism  into  our  philosophy  of  events.  If 
we  believe  —  as  the  fatalist  does  in  effect —  that 
the  whole  trend  of  things  material  and  things 
spiritual  depends  upon  the  values  of  the  con- 
stants in  the  equation  of  continuity  as  applied  to 
the  primordial  nebula,  then  nothing  can  be  de- 
cisive or  even  significant ;  for  all  is  foreordained. 
If  History  is  to  mean  anything  to  us  we  must, 
with  Pope,  assume  that  the  Creator, 

''[While]   binding  Nature  fast  in  Fate, 
Left  free  the  human  will/' 

While  the  English  were  establishing  them- 
selves at  Jamestown  the  French  founded  Que- 
bec. At  Jamestown  was  Captain  John  Smith; 
at  Quebec  was  the  equally  purposeful  Samuel 
Champlain.  Each  of  these  men  is  worthy  to 
rank  among  the  foremost  of  explorers.  Each 
was  in  search  of  a  passage  through  the  American 
continent  to  the  Pacific,  little  suspecting  the  vast 
stretches  of  forest  and  prairie,  the  desert  wastes 
and  the  towering  mountain  ranges  traversed  by 
the  overland  route  to  that  western  sea. 

Just  now  we  are  concerned  with  Champlain. 
Scarcely  had  he  occupied  the  commanding  site 
of  Quebec,  when  he  determined  to  explore  the  un- 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  13 

known  region  to  the  south  of  the  St.  Lawrence. 
The  military  escort  for  such  an  enterprise  could 
not  be  spared  from  the  newly  founded  colony. 
Nothing  daunted,  however,  Champlain  accepted 
an  invitation  to  join  an  Algonquin  war  party, 
which  was  setting  out  for  a  raid  into  the  country 
of  the  Iroquois  in  northern  New  York,  and  soon 
became  their  military  champion.  While  on  this 
expedition  he  discovered  the  lake  which  bears  his 
name.  It  had  been  better  for  New  France,  and 
for  Prance  herself,  had  Champlain  achieved  noth- 
ing more  signal  than  this.  His  Indian  escort, 
however,  had  little  interest  in  mere  geographical 
discovery.    They  were  out  for  scalps. 

Down  at  Jamestown  the  English  colonists  were 
loading  a  ship  with  ^^fooPs  gold",  while  Smith, 
disgusted  at  their  f  oUy,  was  continuing  his  search 
for  the  passage  to  the  South  Sea ;  and  before  that 
summer's  leaves  had  fallen  Henry  Hudson  was 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Mohawk,  scarce  fifty  miles 
from  Lake  Champlain,  on  the  same  quest. 

Upon  the  west  shore  of  the  lake,  at  Ticonder- 
oga,  the  enemy  was  encountered  one  evening  in 
force.  The  invaders  kept  to  their  canoes  all 
night,  a  bow-shot  off  shore,  while  the  Iroquois  in- 


14  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

trenched  themselves  behind  a  hastily  constructed 
stockade.  On  the  next  day,  the  thirtieth  of  July, 
1609,  round  this  primitive  defense,  on  the  bor- 
ders of  that  forest-girt  lake  never  before  visited 
by  the  white  man,  was  waged  one  of  the  really  de- 
cisive battles  of  American  history.  From  a  mil- 
itary standpoint  it  was  an  insignificant  affair,  en- 
gaging scarcely  two  hundred  savage  warriors 
and  only  three  Europeans.  Two  or  three  mus- 
kets won  the  victory  for  the  invaders —  more  by 
the  terror  which  they  inspired  than  by  their  ex- 
ecution. The  blow  delivered,  the  victors  prompt- 
ly fled  the  consequences  of  their  rashness. 

The  haughty  Iroquois  never  forgot  this  humil- 
iation and  from  that  time  forward  their  hostility 
to  Prance  and  her  Indian  allies  was  active  and 
all  but  relentless.  As  soon  as  they  had  them- 
selves obtained  firearms  from  the  Dutch  traders 
on  the  Hudson  they  became  formidable  adver- 
saries and  effectually  checked  any  subsequent  at- 
tempts of  the  French  to  occupy  the  country  to  the 
south  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  It  was  many  years 
before  Champlain  and  his  successors  fully  real- 
ized the  commanding  position  occupied  by  the 
Iroquois  Confederacy   (the   Five  Nations)    in 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  15 

northern  New  York.  Their  territory  comprised 
the  watershed  from  which  numerous  streams 
swept  northward  to  the  St.  Lawrence  or  the 
Great  Lakes ;  southward  to  the  deep  bays  indent- 
ing the  Atlantic  seaboard;  eastward  to  the  tide 
waters  of  the  Hudson ;  and  westward  to  the  Ohio 
and  onward  to  that  ** great  water"  of  the  west, 
the  Mississippi,  which  the  vague  geographical  no- 
tions of  the  day  persisted  in  confounding  with 
the  Pacific.  From  this  vantage  ground  the  Iro- 
quois exacted  obedience  or  became  the  devasta- 
ting scourge  of  all  the  Indian  tribes  from  the  St. 
Lawrence  to  the  Gulf  Plains,  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Mississippi.  None  of  these  might  trade 
with  the  French,  except  at  their  peril. 

The  south  being  thus  closed  to  him  and  the  re- 
gions of  the  North  being  uninviting,  Champlain's 
further  explorations  were  directed  toward  the 
West.  He  followed  the  Ottawa  River  to  its 
sources ;  which,  barring  a  few  portages,  afford  a 
continuous  canoe  route  through  Lake  Nipissing 
to  the  Georgian  Bay  of  Lake  Huron.  A  sea  lay 
before  him ;  but  its  waters  were  fresh,  so  it  was 
called  the  Mer  Dotice,  That  the  great  South  Sea, 
the  goal  of  his  ambition,  lay  just  beyond,  he  little 


16  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

doubted ;  nor  did  Ms  followers  for  two  decades  to 
come.^ 

Then  Jean  Mcolet,  in  wilderness-craft  a  dis- 
ciple of  Champlain,  was  commissioned  to  explore 
the  lands  and  seas  beyond  Lake  Huron,  in  the 
confident  hope  that  he  would  be  able  to  establish 
communication  with  the  Asiatic  Orient.  As  a  re- 
sult of  his  voyage  Lake  Superior  and  Lake  Mich- 
igan became  known.  Nicolet  also  heard,  from 
the  Indians  living  on  the  Pox  Eiver  above  Lake 
Winnebago,  in  Wisconsin,  of  a  ''great  water" 
which  could  be  reached  in  three  days  by  means 
of  a  short  portage. 

Again  this  ''great  water"  was  understood  to 
be  some  arm  of  the  South  Sea.  The  portage  was, 
of  course,  that  from  the  Fox  River  to  the  Wis- 
consin, and  it  was  over  this  route  that  the  Mis- 
sissippi was  actually  reached  by  Joliet  and  Mar- 
quette forty  years  later.  During  this  interval, 
however,  the  northern  Algonquin  tribes  allied 
to  the  French  had  been  entirely  broken  up  and 

1  A  set  of  the  Worlcs  of  Champlain,  in  four  volumes  and  in  the 
French  language,  is  to  be  found  in  the  library  of  The  State  Historical 
Society  of  Iowa.  Champlain 's  observations  and  descriptions  are  so 
full  and  accurate  that  one  can  with  his  journal  and  a  good  map  follow 
the  course  of  his  explorations  from  day  to  day. 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  17 

scattered  by  the  revengeful  and  devastating  Iro- 
quois. Their  dispirited  remnants  had  fled  to  the 
remotest  shores  of  the  Great  Lakes,  and  thither 
the  French  fur  traders  and  Jesuit  missionaries 
had  followed.  It  was  from  these  far  northern 
waters  that  Joliet  and  Marquette,  La  Salle  and 
Tonti,  and  those  who  came  after  them  descended 
the  Mississippi  and  occupied  its  basin. 

Such  was  the  far-reaching  result  of  that  little 
scrimmage  on  the  beach  of  Lake  Champlain, 
where  the  Iroquois  first  felt  the  maddening  sting 
of  the  white  man's  bullet.  Nor  was  this  the  end. 
The  stage  had  only  been  set  for  a  new  scene.  But 
let  us  pause  to  examine  more  closely  the  settings 
of  this  stage. 

It  was  La  Salle  who  conceived  the  scheme  of  a 
vast  French  empire  in  the  Mississippi  Valley. 
In  1669,  four  years  before  the  famous  voyage  of 
Joliet  and  Marquette,  he  had  left  his  estates  on 
the  St.  Lawrence  and  journeyed  off  to  the  south- 
west. A  temporary  lull  in  the  Iroquois  hostil- 
ities had  made  this  journey  possible.  Where  he 
went  and  what  he  found  will  probably  never  be 
accurately  known,  though  all  the  circumstances 
would  indicate  that  he  explored  the  country  to  the 


18  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

south  of  Lake  Erie  and  followed  the  Ohio  River 
for  a  considerable  distance/  It  is  certain  that  he 
did  not  reach  the  South  Sea  and  that  neither  he 
nor  others  of  the  French  entertained  any  further 
projects  with  reference  to  that  chunera.  His 
subsequent  career  can  only  be  explained  upon 
the  assumption  that,  either  by  his  own  explora- 
tions, or  through  the  reliable  testimony  of  In- 
dians whom  he  met,  he  had  resolved  the  mystery 
of  the  ^^ Great  Water  of  the  West".  The  Joliet- 
Marquette  voyage  but  confirmed  what  he  already 
understood.  He  was  thus  early  planning  to  es- 
tablish a  chain  of  military  and  trading  posts, 
sweeping  in  a  vast  arch  from  the  St.  Lawrence 
round  the  Great  Lakes  and  down  the  Mississip- 
pi. Canada,  a  barren,  inhospitable  land,  ice- 
bound during  half  the  year,  was  the  only  outlet 
to  this  wilderness  empire.  He  would  establish 
another  through  the  mouth  of  the  Great  River, 
whose  lower  course  could  as  yet  only  be  conjec- 
tured; he  would  found  another  New  Prance  in 

2  Margry  's  Decouvcrtes  et  Etdblissements  des  Francais  dans 
I' Quest  et  dans  le  Sud  VAmerique  Septentrionale  contain  all  that 
is  ever  likely  to  be  known  about  this  voyage,  together  with  much  dis- 
cussion. A  complete  set  of  these  documents,  in  seven  volumes,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  library  of  The  State  Historical  Society  of  Iowa. 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  19 

these  lower  latitudes  and  under  sunnier  skies. 
By  means  of  these  two  complementary  colonies 
and  the  long  line  of  communication  to  be  main- 
tained between  them,  the  Indian  tribes  to  the 
north  and  west  were  to  be  shielded  against  fur- 
ther incursions  of  the  Iroquois,  thus  insuring  a 
lucrative  and  continuous  fur  trade.  The  Span- 
iards were  to  be  held  in  check  in  the  South ;  and 
the  dominion  of  France  secured  throughout  the 
whole  interior  of  North  America.  The  English 
were  to  be  confined  between  the  mountains  and 
the  sea,  their  coastwise  colonies  being  but  a 
string  to  this  long  French  bow. 

No  sooner  was  this  bold  enterprise  understood 
than  La  Salle  was  ^^ marked  up"  for  misfortune. 
The  Canadian  fur  trader  foresaw  his  annual  har- 
vest diverted  to  other  commercial  highways ;  the 
Jesuit  was  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  losing  his 
prestige  as  rival  interests  and  motives  became 
dominant ;  the  coureurs  de  bois,  those  wild  forest 
rangers  whom  the  fur  trade  had  brought  into  ev- 
idence throughout  the  whole  valley,  regarded  the 
proposed  chain  of  military  posts  as  a  menace  to 
their  lawless  freedom.  With  these  elements  ar- 
rayed against  him,  La  Salle  was  pursued  to  his 


20  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

ruin  by  jealousy,  then  to  his  death  by  malice. 
But  while  his  unburied  bones  lay  whitening  upon 
the  prairie  in  southwestern  Louisiana,  Xew  Or- 
leans was  founded  and  flourished.  It  not  only 
flourished  in  a  substantial  way;  but,  under  the 
stimulating  influence  of  John  Law,  the  financier 
of  the  '^Mississippi  Bubble",  it  '* boomed". 
When  the  bubble  burst  there  were  stranded  in 
the  country  many  of  its  victims,  noble  and  other- 
wise, who  had  no  means  of  leaving  and  who  must 
perforce  devote  themselves  to  making  an  honest 
living.  The  indigo  plant  was  introduced;  also 
the  sugar  cane.  Slaves  were  imported,  and  the 
life  of  the  typical  southern  planter  of  antebel- 
lum days  was  fairly  inaugurated.  Forts,  too, 
were  built  along  the  long  line  projected  by  La 
Salle  from  Canada  to  Louisiana.  The  water 
route  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mex- 
ico by  way  of  the  portages  at  the  head  of  Lake 
Michigan  was  constantly  traversed  by  fur  trad- 
ers, prospectors,  colonists,  and  even  tourists. 

The  eighteenth  century  had  been  ''rung  in"; 
but  during  its  first  half  there  was  little  signifi- 
cant change  in  the  Great  Valley.  In  1721  came 
Charlevoix  on  a  tour  of  inspection  —  to  visit  the 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  21 

Jesuit  missions  throughout  New  France.  He 
must  have  had  an  interesting  time  of  it,  for  he 
has  left  an  interesting  account  of  what  he  saw.^ 
From  this  and  many  other  sources  we  can  form 
a  pretty  good  idea  of  what  life  was  like  among 
the  French  habitans  here  in  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley in  those  early  days. 

Anyone  who  has  journeyed  by  steamboat  down 
the  Mississippi  may  have  noticed  that  the  west 
bank  of  the  river  rises  for  the  most  part  abrupt- 
ly in  high  bluffs ;  while  to  the  east  the  country 
stretches  away  to  a  distance  of  from  two  to  ten 
miles  in  broad  level  river  bottoms.  This  sin- 
gular phenomenon  is  the  result  of  the  rotation  of 
the  earth  upon  its  axis.  The  same  force  that  de- 
flects the  trade  winds  to  the  west  deflects  the 
southward  flowing  waters  of  the  river  toward  the 
western  margin  of  its  flood  plain.  One  of  the 
beautiful  alluvial  tracts  thus  left  upon  the  east- 
em  bank,  and  extending  for  a  distance  of  sev- 
enty or  eighty  miles  below  the  mouth  of  the  Mis- 
souri, was  long  known  as  the  American  Bottom. 

Just  prior  to  the  opening  of  the  eighteenth 

3  Charlevoix 's  History  and  General  Description  of  New  France  is 
to  be  found  in  the  library  of  The  State  Historical  Society  of  Iowa. 


22  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

century  the  Kaskaskias,  the  Cahokias,  and  the 
Tamaroas  had  established  themselves  here.  The 
many  conspicuous  mounds  and  the  abundant 
flint  implements  still  to  be  found  in  this  region 
indicate  that  from  prehistoric  times  it  was  the 
favorite  abode  of  aboriginal  populations.  Here, 
too,  came  the  French,  in  pursuance  of  the  policy 
foreshadowed  by  La  Salle,  to  establish  in  this 
central  region  a  colony  which  should  serve  as  a 
granary  for  the  whole  West.  The  extension  of 
the  fur  trade  up  the  Missouri  River  and  the  de- 
velopment of  the  lead  mines  of  the  Meramec,  just 
across  the  Mississippi,  determined  in  a  general 
way  the  location  of  this  first  of  agricultural  com- 
munities in  the  Middle  West.  The  colonists  laid 
out  long  narrow  farms  and  appropriated  ample 
cattle  ranges.  They  planted  orchards  and  vine- 
yards. Kaskaskia,  Prairie  du  Rocher,  and  Ca- 
hokia  became  thriving  villages.  There  were 
churches  and  wine  shops,  breweries  (at  least 
one)  and  blacksmith  shops,  warehouses,  and  mar- 
kets. The  busy  habitans  tilled  the  soil  and  tend- 
ed their  cattle,  horses,  and  sheep ;  some  built  flat 
boats  and  wagons.  They  burned  brick  and  earth- 
enware ;  tanned  leather  and  wove  both  sheep  and 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  23 

buffalo  wool  into  coarse  cloth.  They  cured  furs ; 
made  soap  and  candles  and  cheese ;  refined  lead 
and  zinc;  ground  flour  by  water  mill  and  wind 
mill;  brewed  and  baked  and  churned;  attended 
mass ;  carried  on  an  active  river  commerce ;  fra- 
ternized with  the  Indians  and  taught  them  the 
arts  of  peace.    All  this  a  thousand  miles  inland 

—  back  in  the  heart  of  the  American  wilderness 

—  before  the  English  had  advanced  beyond  the 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  Atlantic  tides. 

A  quaint  and  gay  people  were  these  pre-pio- 
neers  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  They  were  so- 
ciable creatures,  and  social  lines  were  not  sharply 
drawn  among  them.  Parties  were  an  almost 
nightly  affair,  with  dancing  on  the  rough  punch- 
eon floor  to  the  music  of  the  ubiquitous  French 
fiddle.  Indian  maids  with  French  coureurs  de 
iois  and  canoemen,  French  girls  with  young  In- 
dian chiefs  and  even  the  sable  sons  and  daughters 
of  Ham  —  all  bounced  through  the  movements 
of  the  quadrille  together,  all  ^^ trigged  up"  in 
gaudy  fineries  of  silk  and  fur,  beads  and  buck- 
skin, plumes  and  war  paint.  Acadia  has  its 
Evangeline,  and  we  remember  reading  '*  Alice  of 
Old  Vincennes".    Kaskaskia  is  equally  entitled 


24  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

to  a  literary  heroine,  and  the  materials  for  her 
creation  are  abundant. 

For  the  protection  of  these  growing  colonies 
and  their  Indian  allies  there  was  built  Fort  Char- 
tres  —  no  rude  stockade,  like  those  already  de- 
fending the  route  from  Quebec  to  New  Orleans, 
but  a  solid  structure  of  stone  and  mortar,  esti- 
mated to  have  cost  $1,500,000.  It  was  provided 
with  commodious  barracks;  a  deep,  dark  dun- 
geon-keep that  was  never  used ;  and  heavy  ord- 
nance that  fired  only  salutes  to  the  wilderness. 
It  was  garrisoned  by  regular  troops,  fully  offi- 
cered and  properly  uniformed,  who  affected,  here 
in  this  remote  corner  of  the  world,  something  of 
the  frivolities  of  the  French  capital. 

If  we  give  credit  to  the  descriptions  of  Charle- 
voix the  aborigines  here  made  a  nearer  approach 
to  civilization  than  they  have  ever  attained  under 
the  presumably  enlightened  Indian  policy  of  our 
own  government.  The  work  of  the  Jesuit  mis- 
sionaries is  cordially  extolled.  From  the  first  to 
last  they  strenuously  opposed  the  sale  of  liquor 
to  the  Indians  and  thus  did  much  to  check  the 
physical  and  moral  degeneracy  which  has  been. 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  25 

elsewhere,  the  invariable  result  of  contact  with 
the  white  race. 

Under  this  mild  regime,  travel  in  the  country 
to  the  west  of  the  Wabash  was  at  this  period  — 
so  claims  Charlevoix  —  as  safe  as  along  the  high- 
ways of  France.  This  may  have  been  true  in 
1721,  the  year  that  he  descended  the  Mississippi ; 
but  there  were  many  years  during  the  eighteenth 
century  when  it  was  more  than  expedient  to  be- 
ware of  the  incursions  of  the  Fox  and  Kickapoo 
tribes  dwelling  to  the  west  of  Lake  Michigan.  In 
fact  the  Fox- Wisconsin  portage  was  but  occa- 
sionally used.  Even  the  old  route  of  La  Salle  by 
way  of  the  St.  Joseph,  Kankakee,  and  Illinois 
rivers  had  fallen  into  disuse.  The  situation  about 
the  Great  Lakes  at  this  period  has  been  very 
carefully  investigated  by  Dr.  Quaif e,  one  of  our 
honored  guests  this  evening,  and  is  most  inter- 
estingly described  in  his  recent  work  on  Chicarjo 
and  the  Old  Northwest,  A  new  route  was  grad- 
ually opened  to  and  from  Canada,  shorter  than 
those  by  way  of  the  Lake  Michigan  portages. 
This  was  the  route  by  the  portage  from  the  Mau- 
mee  into  the  Wabash.   The  canoe  of  the  voyageiir 


26  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

glided  from  the  western  extremity  of  Lake  Erie 
into  the  Maumee  where  the  city  of  Toledo  now 
stands.  Up  this  river,  upon  the  site  of  Fort 
Wayne,  Indiana,  was  Port  Miami;  where  the 
same  voyageur  dragged  his  canoe  from  the  water 
to  make  the  portage  to  the  Wabash.  The  forest 
road  along  which  he  toiled  determined,  at  a  later 
date,  the  course  of  the  Wabash  and  Brie  Canal. 
It  conducted  him  to  Port  Ouatinon,  situated  just 
below  the  rapids  and  at  the  head  of  practical 
canoe  navigation  of  the  Wabash.  Once  more 
afloat  the  way  was  clear  of  obstruction  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  Vincennes  had  al- 
ready been  established  further  down  the  Wabash 
by  a  company  conducted  thither  by  one  Pather 
Mermet  in  1727.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  re- 
fer again  to  this,  the  oldest  city  in  the  Ohio  Val- 
ley. Detroit,  founded  in  the  first  year  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  was  the  strategic  key  to  all 
of  these  early  westward  routes. 

This  chain  of  forts  and  settlements  extending 
from  the  head  of  Lake  Erie  to  the  Ohio  formed 
an  impassable  barrier  to  the  Iroquois  in  their 
devastating  raids  and  thus  insured  the  safety  of 
both  the  Prench  and  their  Indian  allies  in  the 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  27 

farther  West.  It  also  served  to  check  the  ad- 
vance of  English  wood  rangers  to  the  Mississip- 
pi, and  thus  secured  a  complete  monopoly  of  the 
fur  trade  along  its  western  tributaries  —  the 
Missouri,  the  Des  Moines,  the  Iowa,  and  other 
rivers. 

So  far,  all  was  favorable  to  France.  She  had 
secured  the  two  main  entrances  to  the  interior 
basin  of  North  America,  the  one  by  way  of  the 
St.  Lawrence  and  the  Great  Lakes,  the  other  by 
the  mouths  of  the  Mississippi.  But  there  was  a 
third  route  —  that  by  way  of  the  mountain 
passes  of  the  Appalachian  system — the  impor- 
tance of  which  the  French  failed  to  appreciate 
until  it  was  too  late.  These  valleys  conduct  to 
the  headwaters  of  the  Ohio,  which  in  their  west- 
erly course  cut  the  long  line  of  communication 
between  Canada  and  Louisiana  at  its  weakest 
point. 

In  the  early  decades  of  the  eighteenth  century 
English  traders  began  to  find  their  way  into  the 
valley  of  the  Alleghany  from  Pennsylvania  and 
into  that  of  the  Monongahela  from  Virginia. 
Both  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  claimed  the 
territory  involved  and  there  soon  developed  a 


28  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

sharp  competition  which  led  to  bold  advances  to 
the  west  along  the  Ohio  and  up  its  principal 
northern  branches.  Before  the  middle  of  the 
century  they  were  carrying  their  wares  to  the 
headwaters  of  the  Muskingimi,  the  Scioto,  and 
the  Miami.  Here  they  began  to  encounter  the 
French  who  had  established  their  stations  at  the 
headwaters  of  the  streams  flowing  northward 
into  Lake  Erie.  Hitherto  these  latter  had  been 
able  to  draw  to  themselves  the  trade  from  the 
Ohio  over  the  watershed  separating  its  basin 
from  that  of  the  lake,  without  actually  occupy- 
ing the  region. 

In  other  quarters,  too,  the  English  were  equal- 
ly aggressive.  The  traders  from  Virginia  and 
the  Carolinas,  pushing  their  canoes  up  Broad 
River,  easily  passed  through  a  defile  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  to  the  sources  of  the  Tennessee.  Others 
found  their  way  through  Cumberland  Gap  to  the 
upper  reaches  of  the  Cumberland.  Thus  was  the 
territory  comprising  the  States  of  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  over-run  by  English  traders  and  set- 
tlers, who  lost  no  opportunity  to  induce  the  war- 
like Chickasaws  to  harass  the  river  commerce  of 
the  French,  compelling  them  to  furnish  their 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  29 

fleets  of  canoes  and  barges  with  military  escort 
in  order  to  insure  safe  passage  to  and  from  New 
Orleans.  There  is  a  detailed  record  of  at  least 
one  strong  expedition  sent  from  Fort  Chartres 
against  these  allies  of  the  English,  which,  fail- 
ing to  cooperate  with  an  auxiliary  force  from 
New  Orleans,  was  destroyed  almost  to  a  man. 
Such  was  the  setting  of  the  stage  when,  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  curtain 
rose  for  another  act  in  the  drama  of  Western 
History. 

The  French  had  now  been  stirred  to  activity. 
The  Governor  of  Canada,  in  the  summer  of  1749, 
sent  Celoron  de  Bienville  to  reaffirm  the  French 
sovereignty  over  the  Ohio  Valley,  long  claimed 
on  the  ground  of  its  exploration  by  La  Salle.  The 
expedition  proceeded  to  the  Alleghany  by  way  of 
Niagara  and  Lake  Chautauqua.  Here  posses- 
sion of  the  country  round  about  was  taken  in  the 
old  pompous  feudal  manner  by  burying  an  in- 
scribed leaden  plate  with  great  solemnity  at  the 
foot  of  a  tree.  Other  plates  were  buried  at  con- 
spicuous points — seven  in  all.  Some  of  these 
plates  have  been  recovered.  The  one  found  at 
Pittsburgh  is  still  legible.     It  reads  (with  omis- 


30  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

sions)  :  '^In  the  year  1749  in  the  reign  of  Louis 
XV  King  of  Prance,  Celoron,  (fommandant  of 
New  France,  has  buried  this  plate  at  the  Three 
Rivers  this  third  of  August,  near  the  river  Oyo, 
otherwise  the  Fair  River,  as  a  monument  to  the 
possession  that  we  have  taken  of  the  said  river 
Oyo  and  of  all  those  that  fall  into  it  and  of  all 
lands  on  both  sides  to  the  sources  of  said  rivers, 
as  the  preceding  kings  of  France  have  enjoyed 
or  ought  to  have  enjoyed  it."  By  such  shallow 
ceremonies  did  France  attempt  to  warn  off  the 
stubborn  English.  Had  each  of  Celoron 's  lead- 
en tablets,  like  the  dragon's  teeth  of  classic  myth, 
sprung  into  a  fortress  the  territory  must  yet 
have  passed  to  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

While  the  French  leader  was  thus  tramping 
and  trumpeting  through  the  forests  of  Ohio, 
proclaiming  his  dog-in-the-manger  doctrine,  a 
number  of  influential  Virginians,  quite  uncon- 
scious of  his  proceedings,  were  busy  with  the  or- 
ganization of  the  Ohio  Company.  The  purpose 
was  to  anticipate  the  occupation  of  the  district 
included  in  their  grant  by  settlers  from  the  rival 
Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania,  rather  than  by 
the  French.    The  Washingtons  were  well  repre- 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  31 

sented  among  those  interested  in  the  company. 
Large  quantities  of  goods  for  the  Indian  trade 
were  imported  from  London,  nmnerous  settlers 
were  engaged,  trading  posts  were  established  at 
advantageous  points,  and  a  fort  planned  at  the 
forks  of  the  Ohio  (Pittsburgh). 

Despite  the  secrecy  with  which  the  company 
guarded  their  movements  the  French  soon 
learned  of  the  enterprise  through  the  Indians 
and  proceeded  to  checkmate  it.  At  Presque  Isle, 
on  Lake  Erie,  a  fort  was  erected  to  serve  as  a 
military  base.  At  the  end  of  the  portage  road 
opened  to  the  headwaters  of  French  Creek,  a 
tributary  of  the  Alleghany,  Fort  Le  Boeuf  was 
established.  The  line  was  to  be  completed  by  the 
building  of  Fort  Venango  at  the  mouth  of 
French  Creek ;  but,  winter  being  at  hand,  the  site 
was  temporarily  secured  by  seizing  the  block- 
house of  one  John  Frazer,  located  near  by,  and 
quartering  a  garrison  there. 

The  Virginians  were  amazed  when  news  of 
these  energetic  measures  was  brought  to  them  by 
the  evicted  Frazer;  but,  the  French  might  still 
be  kept  from  the  Ohio  by  building  a  fort  at  the 
confluence  of  the  Alleghany  and  the  Mononga- 


32  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

hela.  It  was  now  mid- winter,  however,  and  this 
could  not  be  undertaken  at  once.  A  messenger 
was  therefore  dispatched  to  demand  of  the 
French  an  explanation  of  their  designs.  The  per- 
son selected  for  this  delicate  and  perilous  mission 
was  George  Washington.  This  was  in  the  winter 
of  1753-4,  while  he  was  still  in  his  twenty-first 
year.  Washington  met  the  French  commandant, 
Legardeur  de  Saint  Pierre,  at  Fort  Le  Boeuf. 
Here  is  what  he  records  of  their  interview  in  his 
journal: 

He  invited  me  to  sup  with  them,  and  treated  me  with 
the  greatest  complaisance.  The  wine,  as  they  dosed  them- 
selves pretty  plentifully  with  it,  soon  banished  the  restraint 
which  at  first  appeared  in  their  conversation,  and  gave  li- 
cense to  their  tongues  to  reveal  their  sentiment  more  freely. 
They  told  me  that  it  was  their  absolute  design  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  Ohio,  and  by  G — d  they  would  do  it ;  for  that, 
although  they  were  sensible  the  English  could  raise  two  men 
for  their  one,  yet  they  knew  their  motions  were  too  slow 
and  dilatory  to  prevent  any  undertaking  of  theirs.  They 
pretended  to  have  an  undoubted  right  to  the  river  from  a 
discovery  made  by  one  La  Salle,  sixty  years  ago;  and  the 
rise  of  this  expedition  is,  to  prevent  our  settling  on  the 
river  or  waters  of  it,  as  they  had  heard  of  some  families 
moving  out  in  order  thereto. 

The  rapid  succession  of  manoeuvres  which  took 
place  during  the  following  spring,  which  resulted 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  33 

in  the  military  occupation  of  the  forks  of  the 
Ohio  by  the  French,  followed  by  their  advance  up 
the  Monongahela  Valley  and  their  defeat  by 
Washington  in  the  sharp  engagement  at  Great 
Meadows  —  all  this  is  duly  recorded  in  our  text- 
books of  history. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  in  the  first  battle 
of  that  eventful  war  which  gave  America  to  the 
English,  Washington  was  in  immediate  command 
and  the  first  gun  was  fired  by  his  order.  As  we 
celebrate  his  birthday  tomorrow  let  us  remember 
that  long  before  he  became  a  conspicuous  figure 
upon  the  national  stage  he  rendered  faithful  ser- 
vice in  connection  with  one  of  the  most  decisive 
episodes  in  Western  History. 

The  words  of  Thackeray,  quoted  from  *^The 
Virginians",  are  peculiarly  appropriate  tonight: 
**It  is  strange",  he  says,  ^Hhat  in  a  savage  forest 
of  Pennsylvania  a  young  Virginian  officer  should 
fire  a  shot  and  waken  up  a  war  which  was  to  last 
for  sixty  years,  which  was  to  cover  his  own  coun- 
try and  pass  into  Europe,  to  cost  France  her 
American  colonies  and  create  the  great  Western 
Republic,  to  rage  over  the  Old  World  after  it  was 
extinguished  in  the  New,  and  of  all  the  myriads 


34  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

engaged  in  the  vast  contest  to  leave  the  prize  of 
the  greatest  fame  with  him  who  struck  the  first 
blow"  —  George  Washington. 

The  French  and  Indian  War  constitutes  a  de- 
cisive episode  in  our  history,  not  only  because 
it  secured  the  dominion  of  the  Western  Hemi- 
sphere to  the  English  people,  but  for  the  further 
reason  that  it  united  the  English  colonies  into  a 
federation  founded  upon  common  interest.  The 
picture  inserted  by  Franklin  in  the  ^^Pennsyl- 
vania Gazette'',  of  the  disjointed  serpent  with  the 
legend,  '^  Join  or  die",  and  afterward  the  pattern 
for  a  colonial  flag,  was  a  graphic  epitome  of  the 
situation.  But,  though  the  colonies,  federated  in 
spite  of  their  mutual  jealousies  and  dissensions, 
had  fought  the  war  to  a  complete  victory  and  thus 
won  for  England  a  domain  fairer  than  any  na- 
tion ever  before  possessed,  it  soon  became  evident 
that  they  themselves  were  to  be  denied  the  fruits 
of  that  victory  —  were,  in  fact,  to  be  merely  ex- 
ploited for  the  enrichment  of  British  merchants 
and  manufacturers  and  the  fattening  of  British 
officials.  An  edict  of  his  most  royal  majesty, 
George  the  Third,  forbade  settlers  access  to  the 
Ohio  Valley ;  and,  indeed,  the  colonists  might  not 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  35 

even  trade  in  that  region  without  royal  permis- 
sion. At  the  same  time  the  stupid  arrogance  of 
Amherst,  the  officer  in  charge  of  the  western 
posts,  turned  loose  upon  the  frontier  the  horrors 
of  Pontiac's  War,  without  the  least  adequate  de- 
fense against  such  a  contingency  having  been 
provided.  Stamp  acts  and  writs  of  assistance 
and  taxation  without  representation  in  general 
afforded  the  seaboard  colonies  sufficient  ground 
for  rebellion — all  of  which  is  duly  specified  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  But  the  trans- 
mountaineers  of  the  Ohio  Basin  had  equally  good 
reasons,  not  clearly  set  forth  in  that  immortal 
document,  for  participating  in  the  revolutionary 
struggle  on  their  own  account. 

In  the  interval  between  the  French  and  Indian 
War  and  the  War  for  Independence  the  British 
took  but  little  interest  in  the  West.  Garrisons 
were  maintained  at  Niagara,  at  Detroit,  and  at 
Mackinac;  but  these  were  composed  largely  of 
French  soldiers  who  had  taken  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance to  England  and  enlisted  as  mercenaries. 
At  the  remoter  posts  the  only  tangible  evidence 
of  the  change  was  displayed  from  the  flag  staff, 
upon  which  the  Lions  of  St.  George  had  displaced 


36  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

the  Fleur  de  Lis.  French  officers  in  English  uni- 
forms remained  in  command  of  shiftless  Creole 
soldiers  that  knew  no  word  of  English.  Port 
Chartres  had  been  abandoned  and  was  already 
being  undermined  by  the  waters  of  the  Mississip- 
pi. The  cession  to  Spain  of  Louisiana,  including 
the  whole  country  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi, 
had  permitted  this  lax  discipline  along  what  must 
otherwise  have  been  a  contested  frontier. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  the  British 
post  at  Detroit  was  in  charge  of  Lieutenant  Gov- 
ernor Henry  Hamilton.  It  was  not  the  policy  of 
the  British  to  withdraw  troops  from  the  East 
to  protect  their  western  posts  when  the  Indians 
could  be  easily  enlisted  in  that  service.  By  prom- 
ise of  substantial  reward  Hamilton  secured  the 
alliance  of  the  Sioux,  the  Chippewas,  and  the  Me- 
nominees  from  the  Northwest;  the  Sauks  and 
Foxes,  the  Winnebagoes,  and  the  Potawatomis 
from  the  country  between  the  Mississippi  and 
Lake  Michigan.  These  allies  he  turned  loose  up- 
on the  Kentucky  settlements  beyond  the  Ohio, 
people  of  his  own  flesh  and  blood ;  while  the  set- 
tlers to  the  north  of  that  river,  being  still  for  the 
most  part  French,  were  as  far  as  possible  spared. 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  37 

Those  warriors  who  brought  back  to  Detroit  the 
greatest  number  of  scalps  were  most  handsomely 
rewarded.  It  is  little  wonder  that  Hamilton  be- 
came known  to  the  frontiersmen  as  "the  hair- 
buying  general". 

The  Kentucky  settlers  thus  attacked  were  most- 
ly Virginians  by  birth  and  naturally  turned  to 
that  Commonwealth  for  assistance.  Among 
those  who  had  most  staunchly  defended  the  Ohio 
frontier  and  covered  the  retreat  of  the  less  reso- 
lute settlers  to  their  old  homes  across  the  AUe- 
ghanies  was  George  Rogers  Clark.  He  was 
from  a  good  old  Virginia  family,  had  early  be- 
come a  backwoods  surveyor  —  like  Washington 
—  and  was  a  man  to  win  the  respect  and  confi- 
dence of  those  bold  pioneers  with  whom  he  had 
cast  his  lot.  In  his  many  excursions  into  the 
country  bordering  upon  the  Ohio  he  had  learned 
much  of  the  state, of  affairs  among  the  French 
villages,  now  nominally  under  British  control. 
What  he  knew,  and  what  he  learned  from  woods- 
men whom  he  sent  to  make  further  observations, 
convinced  him  that  the  time  was  ripe  for  carry- 
ing the  war  into  the  enemy's  country. 

With  this  purpose  in  mind  Clark  set  out  for 


38  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

Virginia  to  confer  with  Governor  Patrick  Henr}^ 
His  project  found  instant  favor  with  that  sturdy 
old  patriot  and  he  was  given  every  possible  aid 
toward  its  execution.  The  jealousy  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, which  was  still  acute,  rendered  it  necessary 
to  proceed  suh  rosa.  Two  letters  of  instruction 
were  therefore  issued  by  the  astute  Henry —  one 
directly  to  the  purpose,  for  Clark's  own  guidance, 
the  other  for  ^^ public  consumption".  These  two 
letters,  placed  side  by  side  as  they  lie  before  me, 
make  interesting  reading.  Clark's  ultimate  ob- 
ject was  the  capture  of  Detroit.  Before  this 
could  be  undertaken,  however,  the  British  posts 
to  the  north  of  the  Ohio  and  along  the  Mississippi 
must  be  seized  and,  if  possible,  their  Creole  gar- 
risons won  over  to  the  American  cause. 

It  would  take  a  volume  to  describe  adequately 
the  campaign  in  which  this  was  accomplished  and 
I  shall  not  attempt  it  here.  Those  of  you  who 
have  read  Mr.  John  Carl  Parish's  account  of  the 
enterprises  of  La  Salle  and  Tonti,  in  The  Man 
with  the  Iron  Hand,  will  be  glad  to  know  that  he 
contemplates  the  preparation  of  a  volume  on  the 
campaign  of  George  Eogers  Clark  for  the  same 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  39 

series  of  True  Tales  of  the  Great  Valley,  edited 
by  the  Superintendent  of  this  Society. 

We  can  not  tell  in  detail  how,  with  his  little 
troop  of  buckskin-clad  and  coon-skin-capped 
riflemen,  Clark  descended  the  Ohio  to  Port  Mas- 
sac, a  fort  near  its  mouth  established  by  the 
French  as  they  withdrew  from  Fort  Duquesne ; 
how  they  stole  across  *^ Little  Egypt''  to  Kas- 
kaskia,  surprised  and  took  possession  of  that  vil- 
lage without  striking  a  blow,  won  over  the  popu- 
lation of  the  whole  American  Bottom  to  the  cause 
of  the  Republic,  and  recruited  from  this  popula- 
tion men  to  take  the  place  of  those  whose  enthu- 
siasm and  term  of  enlistment  had  expired  simul- 
taneously; how  he  marched  thence  to  Vincennes 
in  mid- winter  —  in  the  month  of  February  it 
was,  in  the  year  1779  —  marched  for  twelve  days 
through  the  ^^ drowned  lands"  of  the  Wabash, 
over  miles  of  country  three  feet  under  water, 
upon  which  the  ice  must  needs  be  broken  with 
their  rifle  butts  as  they  advanced;  how,  mean- 
time, the  ^^hair-buying  general''  with  a  British 
garrison  had  advanced  from  Detroit  and  taken 
possession  of  Vincennes;  how  Clark's  soldiers. 


40  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

famished  and  desperate  as  wolves,  compelled  the 
surrender  of  the  ^^ hair-buyer",  who  even  then 
had  Indian  war  parties  out  hunting  American 
scalps ;  nor  how  he  finally  *^ packed"  his  prisoners 
off  to  Virginia  while  he  organized  his  conquest 
for  further  defense,  and  offense  as  well.  The 
annals  of  war  record  the  details  of  no  campaign 
more  remarkable  than  this.  In  a  private  letter 
to  Governor  Mason,  Patrick  Henry's  successor, 
Clark  begs  him  not  to  give  out  the  details  of  their 
experiences,  as  those  ignorant  of  the  conditions 
which  they  encountered  would  disbelieve  his 
statements. 

The  Revolution  dragged  wearily  on  to  its  end 
with  no  further  incident  of  note  in  the  West. 
The  projected  expedition  against  Detroit  never 
materialized,  much  to  Clark's  disappointment; 
but  it  mattered  not.  The  Governor  of  that  post 
and  a  large  part  of  its  garrison  had  been  captured 
at  Vincennes.  When  hostilities  had  ceased  and 
when,  before  the  peace  commissioners  assembled 
in  Paris,  Benjamin  Franklin  contended  for  the 
American  possession  of  the  West,  his  arguments 
were  powerfully  reinforced  by  the  fact  that 
American  supremacy  was  already  assured  in  that 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  41 

region  and  that  no  peace  could  be  permanent 
without  its  recognition.  All  this  we  owe  to 
George  Rogers  Clark.  The  capture  of  Vincennes 
had  in  the  West  an  effect,  both  actual  and  moral, 
similar  to  that  produced  in  the  East  by  the  sur- 
render of  Burgoyne  at  Saratoga.  His  campaign 
is  surely  entitled  to  rank  as  one  of  the  really  de- 
cisive episodes  in  Western  History,  and  his  title 
to  a  place  in  the  American  ^^hall  of  fame''  is  be- 
yond dispute. 

And  now  the  great  clock  by  which  historians 
mark  the  lapse  of  time  tolls  nineteen.  The  young 
republic  is  making  substantial  progress,  but  with 
halting  steps.  Its  affairs  are  still  involved  in 
the  maze  of  European  politics.  Prance  is  again 
in  possession  of  Louisiana  and  even  cherishes  the 
hope  of  recovering  all  that  she  had  lost  this  side 
the  sea  through  Bourbon  incompetency.  But 
the  conciliatory  policy  adopted  by  Napoleon  with 
reference  to  the  United  States  forestalled  any 
attempt  to  realize  the  hope.  Jealous  lest  Eng- 
land should  at  last  secure  the  prize,  the  value  of 
which  was  now  apparent  to  far-sighted  men, 
Louisiana  was  ^^ knocked  down"  to  the  United 
States  at  the  bargain  price  of  $15,000,000.    New 


42  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

England  statesmen,  of  course,  opposed  the 
^^deal";  but  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  ^^ author  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  of  the 
Statute  of  Religious  Liberty,  and  founder  of  the 
University  of  Virginia",  carried  his  point  and 
Uncle  Sam  took  possession  of  an  unimproved 
ranch  equal  in  extent  to  all  western  Europe. 
Again  was  the  responsible  leader  in  one  of  the 
most  decisive  episodes  of  Western  History  a  Vir- 
ginian. 

News  traveled  but  slowly,  by  sailing  ship  and 
canoe,  in  the  early  days  of  the  nineteenth  century 
and  it  was  the  ninth  of  March,  1804,  before  the 
Spanish  grandees  at  St.  Louis  hauled  down  their 
flag  and,  midst  the  huzzas  of  the  Creole  popula- 
tion, courteously  hoisted  the  tri-color  of  France. 
The  very  next  day  this  was  lowered  to  make  way 
for  the  stars  and  stripes —  there  were  but  seven- 
teen stars  then  —  and  the  people  of  the  great 
West  never  since  have  been  called  upon  to  change 
their  allegiance.  Just  across  the  river  from  St. 
Louis  was  a  strange  busy  camp.  Here  were  as- 
sembled, awaiting  the  formal  transfer  of  Louis- 
iana, the  little  party  of  soldiers,  voyageitrs,  and 
frontiersmen,  forty-two  in  all,  under  the  joint 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  43 

command  of  Meriwether  Lewis  and  William 
Clark,  who  were  to  carry  this  same  flag  to  the  far 
sources  of  the  Missouri,  then  down  the  western 
mountain  slopes  to  the  Colinnbia  and  along  that 
stream — 'Hhe  Oregon,  which  hears  no  sound, 
save  his  own  dashings"  —  to  the  Pacific. 

I  shall  not  detain  you  with  the  details  of  this 
expedition.  There  are  several  here  this  evening 
who  will  recall  the  most  interesting  account  of  it 
given  by  Mr.  Rich,  one  of  the  Curators  of  this 
Society,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Political  Science  Club 
several  years  ago.  Council  Bluffs  and  Floyd's 
Bluff  will  suggest  incidents  of  the  earlier  stage 
of  its  progress  familiar  to  us  as  lowans. 

Two  and  one-half  years  passed  by  with  no  tid- 
ings from  the  explorers.  They  had  been  given 
up  as  lost ;  when  on  the  twenty-third  of  Septem- 
ber, 1806,  thirty  ragged,  bronzed,  and  weather- 
beaten  voyageurs  steered  their  canoes  up  to  the 
water  front  of  St.  Louis.  People  were  surpris- 
ed; but  presently  someone  recognized  who  they 
were  and  cheers  gave  evidence  of  their  welcome. 
These  were  the  last  of  the  great  pathfinders  of 
the  American  continent. 

To  the  enterprise  of  Virginians  we  owe,  not 


44  EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY 

only  the  consummation  of  the  Louisiana  Pur- 
chase itself,  but  also  the  ^ ^follow  up"  movement 
initiated  by  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition, 
which  finally  made  us  secure  in  its  possession; 
for  these  men,  too,  were  Virginians.  Captain 
William  Clark  was,  in  fact,  a  younger  brother 
of  George  Rogers  Clark,  and  Meriwether  Lewis 
had  been  President  Jefferson's  secretary. 

The  nineteenth  century  is  studded  with  events 
significant  in  connection  with  the  development  of 
the  West.  The  century  itself  is  one  vast  episode, 
emerging  from  the  level  of  preceding  times  like 
the  basic  plateau  of  some  mountain  range,  and 
precluding  a  just  appreciation  of  the  relief  in 
which  its  great  events  actually  stand. 

The  time  allowed  me  will  not  permit  of  further 
specification.  But  as  I  write  these  words  there 
looms  up  in  the  shadow  beyond  my  lamp  the 
figure  of  a  man  —  tall,  angular,  and  uncouth; 
yet  strong,  and  with  an  expression  of  kindliness 
and  tenderness  such  as  can  be  depicted  upon  the 
face  of  no  man  who  has  not  suffered.  I  need  not 
tell  you  what  Abraham  Lincoln  did  for  America. 
He  will  continue  to  be  known  in  history  as  the 


EPISODES  IN  WESTERN  HISTORY  45 

savior  of  the  nation  which  Washington  founded, 
and  we  are  proud  that  he  came  out  of  the  West. 
But  let  us,  while  paying  due  honors  to  those 
whose  enterprise  and  foresight  brought  the  West 
within  the  bounds  of  the  American  Republic, 
while  treasuring  the  memory  of  those  heroes  who 
grappled  here  with  the  primordial  wilderness, 
and  while  cultivating  that  provincialism  which 
is  necessary  to  a  just  and  proper  pride  in  our 
western  institutions  —  let  us,  with  all  this,  keep 
ever  before  us  that  ideal  for  which  our  Lincoln 
gave  himself,  even  as  a  living  sacrifice:  **No 
East,  no  West ;  no  South,  no  North ;  but  one  coun- 
try''. 


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